How do I handle the death of my secret lover? | Ask Philippa

The dilemma I am a professional, single, middle-aged woman and I have been in a relationship with a married man for 12 years. He recently died suddenly. He and I loved each other. His feelings for me were separate and secondary to his commitment to his family. I was never misled by him on that front. I, therefore, walked into this relationship with my eyes wide open. Yet I knew from my previous experience of relationships that what we had was worth keeping in whatever form it could be kept. We were each other’s ideal partners, matched intellectually, sexually and emotionally, and immensely enjoyed each other’s company.

A small part of me wants to proclaim publicly that I was more than just a peripheral friend. I have two friends who did know, but had no friends in common with him who knew. Having lost my parents recently, I know another mode of grief – a grief that prompts empathy, and the solace that empathy provides. I feel abandoned and bereft in my secret loss, an inarticulate grief. This is an intensely silent bereavement of one of the most significant relationships of my life.

My loyalty to him and to our relationship forbids me from betraying this secret. His family have been the recipients of his best love and now public love, condolences, etc. This is understandable. But I can’t even ask for compassionate leave from work.

Why I chose such an impossible situation I will leave for the long-term analysis which I am in, but I write to you in the hope of getting a clue as to how to handle this current moment. I feel as though I am null and void.

Philippa’s answer Who are we without human mirrors to reflect back our own experience of ourselves? I expect a part of you was only witnessed by your late lover. You use the words “null and void” – I think we humans can feel we don’t exist if we live unwitnessed. You do exist, you do count, and I and anyone else you choose to tell will know how hard and horrible your present situation is.

All humans have formalised rites and ceremonies to mark the death of a person for a reason. They structure and give meaning to the overwhelming, uncontainable, impossibility of managing grief. Death ceremonies formalise grief. By silently going through this, your grief may feel even more uncontained than it would were you able to grieve publicly at his funeral.

You have two friends who knew you had this lover. You need to ask for their support. You need to devise your own death ceremony for your dead lover. I don’t know what this will be. Maybe you have a piece of his clothing or other effects he had left with you. Carry it around with you, talk to it as though it is him, and, after a while, ceremoniously let it go. Whether it goes up in smoke, or you send it on its way out to sea, or you bury it, will be up to you.

You need something that represents him that you let go of. You will need your two friends to be with you to witness you when you do it. Think of the words you would want to use if you had such a ceremony. It isn’t the public funeral, but it is a ritual and it may give you some structure to how you are feeling. Having a private altar to his memory as well might help. You, together with your friends who didn’t know him, must, I think, do this, or its equivalence.

You seem to be framing your loss in relation to those others grieving in public, but much of the terrible isolation and loneliness you are feeling is from the loss of this great love, the loss of the main witness of your life. You will be missing the person who you were when you were with him. Your grief isn’t in relationship with the family and should not be compared to it – your love for your late partner in death is as separate from theirs as it was in life.

You went into the relationship with your eyes open knowing it would always be secret, but you might not have been prepared for how this would affect you if he was to die before you, so it is understandable that at the moment you feel lost about how to cope. If I were you I would also confide in my doctor to get time off work – doctor confidentiality should mean that the reason for your sicknote is not divulged.

You are bereaved and you have every right to grieve this loss. You know how to love and you may well love again, but you will always have this loss. In time, more of you will grow around it, you’ll get more used to it, but right now, it feels unmanageable, and raw, and I’m sorry for what you are going through.

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